News

Apple responds to NBC, won’t offer upcoming fall season shows

By Charles Starrett ● Friday, August 31, 2007

Apple has announced that they will not be offering NBC television shows for the upcoming season on iTunes. In the announcement, Apple revealed that NBC wanted it to pay more than double the wholesale price for each episode, a move that would have resulted in the retail price of each episode increasing from $1.99 per episode to an eye-popping $4.99 per episode. Apple also noted that ABC, CBS, FOX and The CW, along with more than 50 cable networks, are signed up to sell TV shows from their upcoming season on iTunes at $1.99 per episode.

“We are disappointed to see NBC leave iTunes because we would not agree to their dramatic price increase,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “We hope they will change their minds and offer their TV shows to the tens of millions of iTunes customers.”

Because the agreement between Apple and NBC runs out in December, should Apple have begun sales of fall series, NBC could have pulled the content from the store mid-season. To avoid this potential problem, Apple decided not to carry the shows at all. According to the announcement, NBC provided iTunes with three of its ten top-selling shows last season, accounting for 30 percent of iTunes TV show sales.